Ward Stone
by Lovelesslife
Summary: Harry and Snape visit the ward stone of Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

'Maybe if I- no, that wouldn't work, what about- no that wouldn't work either. Hmm, maybe if I… ha! That'll work. Now to convince the elves I fixed the problem.' Harry closed his notebook and stretched. Then blinked and looked around him. 'Er- where am I? Oh well, looks like more exploring for me. Again. I have got to stop doing this.' He muttered.

'Talking to yourself Mr. Potter? How touching.' Harry jumped and whirled around, his wand appearing in his hand.

'Oh, Professor Snape, it's you. Please don't do that.' Harry sheathed his wand and bent to pick up his notebook, which he had dropped earlier.

'Why are you in front of my private quarters Mr. Potter; when you should be in class?'

'I'm in the dungeons? That explains why I have no idea where I am. And I don't have classes today.'

'Really? Because I know for a fact, that the seventh year Gryffindors have DADA this block.'

Harry stared at him blankly for a moment. 'I don't want to know why you know that. But that's beside the point. I'm getting privately tutored in DADA this year. My tutor owled me this morning and said she couldn't make it.'

'Special treatment Mr. Potter? Why am I not surprised?'

'Actually sir, it was for the safety of the class. I kept overpowering my spells at the beginning of the year. It was putting everyone else at risk, and by the time I had that under control, I was way ahead of everyone else. I _have_ to use a large amount of my magic every day, or I'll have the same problem again.'

'And if you don't have your DADA class, what do you normally do?'

'I either bake something, or I duel Professor Flitwick, but he's got classes all day, and the elves won't let me back into the kitchen until I figure out why the recipe I was making last time exploded.'

'So you have no way to expel your magic today.'

'Actually, I just fixed the recipe. It shouldn't explode this time.'

'I'm surprised anyone would let you near a stove with how you're always exploding the cauldrons in my class.'

'I've been cooking since I was three professor, I just don't understand potions, or why you need to stir them certain ways or why you need to add the ingredients the way you do.'

Snape looked thoughtful for a moment. 'Since you were three?'

'Yes, what has that got to do with anything?'

'It has everything to do with your problems during potions. Come, I need to see how you cook. I might be able to fix your problem.' He turned and walked to the stretch of wall Harry had previously been sitting against. He leant close to the wall and whispered something to it, then turned to Harry. 'Well Potter, are you coming in or not?' He then turned and vanished, leaving Harry to scramble in behind him.

'Er, exactly how long were you watching me professor?' Harry asked tentatively.

'Long enough to know you keep a diary.'

'I don't keep a diary sir.'

'Than what would you call that, Mr. Potter?' Snape asked, pointing to the notebook clutched in Harry's arms. 'Take your shoes off. I won't have you tracking dirt through my quarters.'

'It's a recipe journal.' Harry answered as he kicked off his trainers. 'It's where I keep my recipe ideas. It's not unlike a potions journal, these just taste good.'

'Potions can taste good as well Potter. I just don't see the point in making them do so. People like you would end up in the infirmary more often.'

'You do know that more than half the time I spend in there is 'cause _your_ Slytherins curse me from behind, right? Where's your kitchen?'

'Through here. And don't blame your stupidity on my Slytherins.'

'Ask Madam Pomfrey then. Ron and Hermione are never around when it happens, and the curses always come from behind me. Though, if you don't mind my saying, they can be pretty stupid, they actually _talk_ while cursing me, and in doing so _name_ the people who cursed me.' Harry rummaged around in Snape's' cupboards. 'Do you have anything _edible_ in here?' The cupboards were filled with potions ingredients.

'I believe there's a bezoar in there somewhere.' Snape answered amused.

'Not funny. How am I supposed to cook something for you, if there isn't anything _to_ cook?'

Snape gave him a blank look then placed a silencing ward between them and called a house-elf. He spoke to briefly, then it popped out. Snape removed the silencing ward. 'I want to see if you can identify what you'll be making by the ingredients.'

'Depends on what you're making me make, but if you're having me bake something; then there'll be no problem.' The elf popped in, laid the ingredients out in front of Harry and popped back out. Harry stared at the ingredients, then at Snape. 'You want me to make beef stew?' he asked incredulously.

'Yes. It has a lot of the different motions you need to make for potions making in it. Now start making it.'

Harry rolled his eyes and called another elf to him. He whispered in its ear, and listened to the reply, he looked thoughtful for a moment, then answered it. The elf popped away and Harry set to work.

'Do I want to know what you just asked that elf?'

'I don't know, do you?'

'Let me rephrase that, should I know what you asked that elf?'

'Not really, you'll find out soon enough anyway.'

'Stop.' Snape barked suddenly, standing up from the table where he had been watching Harry chop his potatoes. Harry looked up startled.

'Why?'

'You're chopping is sloppy. Make them even pieces.'

'Alright, but why?'

'Different sizes in chopped potions ingredients means they'll react slower or quicker than other ingredients, which would explain how you managed to mess up the potions that even Longbottom managed to make successfully.'

'So because the chopped bits weren't the same size, the properties were released at different times, and therefore reacted at the wrong time?'

'Essentially, yes. Stirring is the same; stir clockwise, certain properties are released or encouraged to react; stir counterclockwise and other properties are encouraged to release or react. It has to do with the magic you release while stirring the potion one way or another.'

'Er- we're _supposed_ to release our magic while making potions?' Harry asked, slightly sheepish.

Snape gave him an assessing look. 'Yes. You've been holding back your magic haven't you?' Harry nodded.

'So did Neville, although, I'm not entirely certain he did it on purpose.'

'With the amount of magic you have that might actually have been a good thing. Too much magic will cause larger explosions when you screw up, or when the potion is at an extremely volatile state. With you, just release a small trickle of magic, if you can control it that much.'

'I can. It was one of the first exercises my tutor made me go through when we started. Was ever so glad we were in the room of requirements when I cast the first spell.'

'Why is that?'

'The first attempt increased the amount of magic I was channeling, instead of decreasing it; turned the target to dust. The next attempt nearly blew up the wall.' Harry admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. 'It's a good thing the room takes any spells that aren't meant to hit the wall and puts the power into the wards.'

'That would explain why the wards have been a lot stronger this year.'

Harry frowned at that. 'From the small amounts of magic I've had hit the walls there shouldn't have been a noticeable increase in the power of the wards, not unless they were on the verge of falling, and Dumbledore should have noticed that when he powered the ward stone at the beginning of the year.'

'Albus doesn't know where the ward stone is, none of the past five headmasters knew where the stone was.'

'Really? I know where it is, I've visited it several times. There's always a small boost in the power of the wards at the beginning of the year. I always thought it was because Dumbledore powered the stone at the beginning of the year as it is his main start of term job. I guess it was the students returning that power the stone. It would explain why _all_ the students are tired at the end of the first day feast, when we aren't at the end of the train ride home. The castle's been sucking power from the students to keep the wards going, only there have been less students attending each year, so she can't suck enough power to keep them up anymore.'

'You're going to have to show Albus where the stone is.' Snape said worriedly.

'I can't. I can't even mention it to him, I've tried; several times. All I end up saying is some strange psycho-babble that I had to take classes to understand.'

'Then you'll have to go and power the wards. And why can you tell me about the stone, but not the headmaster?'

'Maybe the castle likes you? I know she's not overly fond of the headmaster.'

'What do you mean?'

'All that psycho-babble I was talking about earlier? Yeah, that was the castle venting her opinion of the headmaster to him. And I know he understood her, because he always looked mildly miffed when she gave me my voice back. There, this good? I can leave Dobby to look after it while we go to the ward stone.'

'Why am I coming with you? There's next to no chance of you being able to show me where it is, even if you could tell me.'

'I have a feeling she'll let me take you at least once, and if we're doing this; I'm most likely going to need help back up, I have a feeling she'll be taking as much of my magic as she can when I do this, and that will most likely leave me too weak to walk; if not unconscious.'

'All right, call your elf and we'll go, it's a good thing you don't have any classes tomorrow isn't it, even you will probably need a few days to recover from being drained nearly dry.'

'We'll see won't we professor?' After pulling his shoes on and giving Dobby instructions to turn off the stove and remove the pot to the cooling rack when it was done, he headed out the door and to the left, the promptly closed his eyes and kept walking.

'Potter, what are you doing?'

'Letting Hogwarts guide me.'

'What do you mean 'letting her guide you'?'

'Hogwarts has a thread of her magic attached to my core, it's how she communicates with people. All the heirs have one, and their soul mates, though the soul mates won't be able to communicate with her until they have bonded with their soul mate.'

'If she's got a thread attached to you, can't she pull the magic from your core without us going to the stone?'

'Nope, it's for communication purposes only, and even then, it's only fully activated once we reach our majority. Actually, she says she could;' Harry cocked his head to the side as if listening. 'But in doing so it would kill us, therefore she would rather not.'

'So she could kill the Dark Lord?' Snape asked as Harry pricked each finger with a knife Snape had not realized Harry had on him.

'Only if he were inside her, but she says she won't involve herself in our wars. Oh, look; we're here!' Harry said cheerfully. As he reached his bloody hand towards the stone he cheekily added. 'Besides, of all the ways he could die, I think Grandfather would appreciate death by castle the least.'

Before Snape could react Harry's hand made contact with the stone and he stiffened. There was an overly bright flash of purple light, and he crumpled to the floor, Snape barely managed to catch his head before it hit the floor. Just as Snape settled on the floor next to Harry to wait for him to wake up, a white light shot out of the stone and struck the both of them in the chest, the last thing Snape saw was a pillow appearing right before his head hit it instead of the ground; then he blacked out.

When Snape came to a few minutes - or was it hours? - later, Harry was still out of it.

He glared at the stone, then shoved the pillow the castle had conjured for him under Harry's head. He pulled out his wand to summon a blanket, then glanced at the ward stone and put it away; he covered Harry with his cloak instead.

It was an hour later that Harry began to stir, and half an hour after that until he woke up.

'Well it's about time you woke up Potter, Albus is sure to be looking for us by now, seeing as the ward stone knocked me out and I didn't cancel my last class. I should have made you wait until after my last class to do this.' Snape grumbled as he held out his hand to pull Harry to his feet.

Harry grinned up at him as he took Snape's hand. 'Well then, my quota of chaos has been completed then. Grandfather will be pleased.'

Snape frowned. 'About that Potter, what, exactly, did you mean when you referred to the Dark Lord as 'Grandfather'?'

'Well, I went to Gringotts before my birthday, and they found so many blocks and other stuff on me, that they took them off and did a test to see if I had any living relatives. Turns out Mum was adopted, and Tom Riddle was her biological father. When I confronted him about it, he'd had no idea that he'd had a child. But he was happy that he had a reason to stop trying to kill me. It's impossible for two heirs of Slytherin to kill one another. Of course, he didn't recognize females as heirs, so it's quite possible for an heir to kill their sister or daughter.' Harry explained. 'Or even their mother, if she was the descendant.' He added frowning.

'What if one descendant had done another a great wrong?'

'I think there are ritual words we can say that would enable us to kill the one who had done us the wrong, but magic has to judge it and there are consequences of attempting it when the wrong was not great enough. And they have to be said within a certain amount of time or magic forgives the wrong.'

'And if the one wronged wishes to forgive the one who wronged them?'

'Another ritual, one I did with Grandfather, as I was not of age to use either ritual when he committed the wrong; magic waited until I had my majority to start the countdown. The odd thing is we don't know either ritual until it is needed, and we forget the words after speaking them, but anyone who witnesses them remembers the words. Hence the punishment for speaking the one when not needed.'

'Ah. Now, seeing as you speak with the castle, perhaps you can ask her why she attacked me?'

Harry cocked his head for a moment. 'She hasn't attacked you, she bound you to me because she took a bit more magic than she had planned and needed your magic reserves to stop me from falling into a coma. And... Er... apparently you're my soul mate.'

Snape fainted.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry whistled while rocking back and forth on the ball of his heels.

'Will you stop that Potter?' Snape suddenly exploded. 'It's bad enough that _I_ have to be the one to tell _your_ grandfather about this, but to have you acting like everything is going to be fine, when it's not; is driving me insane. And you do enough of that at school already as it is.'

'Aww,' Harry pouted as he stopped rocking. 'Don't you enjoy my particular brand of chaos?'

'No.' Snape said bluntly. 'Not when I'm the one who has to clean up after you.'

'Never put the moments in a pensieve to enjoy later, after the hecticness of it all has gone away?'

'No.'

'Maybe you should. At the very least you could yell at me all you wanted without getting into trouble for it. Just don't expect me to you know, actually know what you yelled at me about.'

'Or he could just take the anger out on your memory so that he can say the things he'd yell at you otherwise in such a way that you'll remember what he told you.'

They spun around, and Harry flung himself at the newcomer with a cry of 'Grandfather!'

'Harry, what have I said about tackling me?' The man groaned from the floor.

'Er- to give you a warning so that you could brace yourself?' Harry asked sheepishly.

'Exactly. Now let me up.' Harry rolled off his grandfather, and quickly hid behind Snape.

'Hey!' Snape exclaimed stepping aside. 'I am not a hiding place!'

'Not even for your soulmate?' Harry asked shifting nervously.

'Especially not for my soulmate. He can get himself out of the trouble he gets himself into just fine.' Snape stated smirking at him.

'And if he can't?' Harry asked edging further away from his grandfather.

'Then I suggest he runs.' At that Harry nodded and bolted from the room, Nagini firmly on his trail.

'Huh,' Snape stated amused. 'I hadn't even realised she was in the room.'

'I don't think Harry would have either if she hadn't been muttering death threats at him while he was on top of me.' The man stated while brushing off his robes. 'I think she got fed up with being tackled unexpectedly. She still has bruises from the last time.'

'Do you wish for me to make a paste for that?' Snape asked while bowing.

'Hmm, that may be a good idea.' The Dark Lord waved at Snape to stand up, then conjured a pair of chairs for them. 'So, why did Harry bring you here?'

'What do you know of the ward stone at Hogwarts?'

'Only that I never want to actually go there. Hogwarts has enough access to my mind as it is, I don't want to enable her to have more.'

'Harry took me there after I told him that the Headmaster had no idea where it was.'

'Let me guess,' He sighed. 'He powered up the stone,' Snape nodded. 'And something else happened as well, because this _is_ Harry we're talking about and he can never do things the easy way.'

'Hogwarts took more than she thought she would. She had to bind him to me to stop him from going into a coma.'

'And judging from the comments you made earlier, you turned out to be his soulmate.' Voldemort sighed.

'Yes, My Lord. That's what Harry has told me. I've yet to speak to Hogwarts myself however, so I'm not entirely sure he didn't misunderstand her somehow.'

'He does have a tendency to do that doesn't he? He also never does things by halves either, he was supposed to go into Slytherin, but he convinced the hat to place him anywhere _but_ Slytherin.'

'And promptly got Gryffindor. Well that does explain a few things from over the years, however, he's acting way too much the Gryffindor now. Have you checked him for spells or potions?'

'You wouldn't risk your mastery being removed because you made those potions, so I wouldn't have to worry about those.'

'Normally I would agree with you about that My Lord. But I'm not the only one in the order capable of brewing those particular potions. I would check him just in case.'

'Yes, maybe I shall. And you as well. I know you still had issues with James Potter, but I don't think you would have normally taken it out on the son.'

'No. I even have prior experiences to prove it. I still had issues with Lucius when Draco was born, but I've never taken it out on him. And the Weasley twins. I certainly have issues with them, but I've never taken it out on their siblings. I had to work out a special detention period for them so they wouldn't pull pranks in my classroom.'

'So they pulled the pranks in detention instead?'

'Actually, they used it to explore the possibilities of potions. Let's just say there are two silent partners. One on the financial front, and one on the creative front.'

Harry came skating through the door with Nagini wrapped around him. 'So, we just discovered another of Naginis' abilities, but it doesn't make _any_ sense whatsoever.' He commented idly.

'Why are you skating inside the house?' Voldemort asked blankly.

'Yeah, Nagini couldn't catch me, and then the floor was covered in ice and she can't turn it off.' A house elf crashed into Harry's legs. 'And the elves don't know how to skate.' He added after he finished his wild flailing to stay upright.

'I didn't know you did.' Snape sighed. Harry stared at Snape.

'Seven years of skating on the lake and you managed to miss it?' He asked incredulously.

'As you usually go home for the Christmas holidays, I can see why I missed it.' Snape pointed out dryly.

'Seeing as I skate on the lake as soon as the ice is stable enough. No, I don't see how you missed it. Especially since it froze over in _October_ in my first year, and I had to send home for my skates.'

'Is that what that package was? Albus wouldn't shut up about what it could possibly be.'

'Why didn't he just ask me?'Harry asked confused.

'Something about the mystery of it.'

'Hmm, he just gets stranger and stranger. At least with Nagini's' talent active right now I can practice for the games next winter!'

'What do you mean? 'Practice for the games'?' Snape frowned.

'You spend your Summer Holidays in the muggle world, and you don't know?' Harry gaped at him. 'The Winter Olympics are next year and I'm competing again!'

'Wait, what do you mean 'again'?'

'You do remember that I was called away for a family thing for just under three weeks during the Tournament, yes?'

'Yes, they had to reschedule the second task around it. It's why it was at the beginning of March, instead of the end of February.'

'Hmm, well, originally I wasn't supposed to go, which is why you had next to no heads up. The person who was supposed to go landed one of his jumps wrong and twisted his ankle, he got lucky it wasn't a sprain. Anyway, I was the next in line to go from all the scores, so I went in his place. Didn't place as well as my Aunt wanted, but a whole lot better than the rest of us thought I would.'

'Wait, I think I remember hearing about that.' Snape stated slowly. 'One of my neighbours likes to update me on any major events that happen while I am away at 'that modern deprived school' in her opinion. She's strangely up to date for an eighty year old woman. She told me a fourteen year old had placed third in his event. That was you?'

Harry shrugged. 'I would have placed better, but one of my landings was a little off.'

'What exactly are the Winter Olympics?' Voldemort asked lost.

'Oh that's right, they wouldn't have happened when you were growing up because of the wars. The Winter Olympics are the winter portion of the Olympic games, which were separated into two portions four years ago to make it easier on those who were competing. They're a compilation of most of the major muggle sports. Getting to compete in either of the Olympics is equivalent to competing in the Quidditch world cup here. Basically, it means you are one of the elite in your chosen sport.

'I'm actually entering into two different events next year. Men's singles, and ice dancing.'

Snape promptly burst into laughter. 'I've seen you dance Potter, you couldn't do it to save your life.'

Harry scowled at him. 'For that, I'm dragging you to the rink with me so that you can see me do it.'

Voldemort perked up. 'I'm coming with you.'

* * *

 **A/N: Oh dear God, what could possibly go wrong in _that_ particular scenario?**

 **And I am aware that in the books Harry never goes home for the holidays, however in _this_ fic something happened when he was younger to make his family somewhat more accepting of him.**

 **And the Olympics really were separated in to the Winter and Summer portions in 1994.**


End file.
